Simon Serrailler’s story began in The Various Haunts of Men (about a serial killer) and continued with The Pure in Heart (about a kidnapped schoolboy). Susan Hill is not afraid to tackle difficult issues, nor to face up to the realities of stress in an ordinary English police station. Her third crime novel, The Risk of Darkness, even more compulsive and convincing, follows up the child abduction and explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement which turns to obsession and threats, violence and terror.

Meanwhile, handsome, introverted Simon Serrailler, whose cool reserve has broken the hearts of several women, finds his own heart troubled by the newest recruit to the Cathedral staff: a feisty female Anglican priest with red hair…

The Risk of Darkness is packed with action and adventure. Like Various Haunts, it hinges on a terrific twist which comes as a complete surprise to the reader; and like The Pure in Heart, it deals in depth with complex daily problems....

Let's play hide-and-seek!

If you were a mouse, would you play hide-and-seek with a cat? Stuart Littler does! But when Stuart hides too well, will cat find him -- before it's too late?

...

The second novel featuring Detective Inspector Simon Serrailler set in the English Cathedral town of Lafferton.

A little boy is kidnapped as he stands with his satchel at the gate of his home, waiting for a lift to school. An ex-con finds it impossible to stay straight. A severely handicapped young woman dies in the night — has someone who loves her helped her out of this world?

Once again, Susan Hill brilliantly creates a community, with detail so sharp and convincing that readers feel that these people are their neighbours. And that terror and evil are always in their midst. . . .


From the Trade Paperback edition....

The Pure in Heart continues the story of Simon Serrailler, the Detective Chief Inspector to whom readers were introduced in The Various Haunts of Men. Simon is on vacation in Venice, trying to come to terms with the brutal murder of a young woman who had been in love with him. But soon a telephone call summons him home.

The Various Haunts of Men met with such a response that Overlook is publishing this second Simon Serralier mystery as quickly as possible to satisfy Susan Hill's new fans and to attract even more readers to her particular brand of ghastly enterprise.

A little boy is snatched as he stands with his satchel at the gate of his home, waiting for his lift to school. A severely handicapped young woman hovers between life and death. And an ex-con finds it impossible to go straight. The Pure in Heart is a crime novel arising from character and circumstances, about the psychology of crime, something more enthralling than plain thrillers or whodunits.

In Lafferton, Serralier's town, Susan Hill has brilliantly created a community with detail so sharp and true to life that readers feel that these people are their own neighbors and friends. But there is terror and evil in their very midst.

There are no easy answers in The Pure of Heart, a magnificent novel about the realities of police work and the sometimes desperate humanity of family. Haunting and truthful, gripping and convincing, it is a thrilling achievement....

Dave never thought he'd spend Christmas with three chipmunks. After all, they are not a regular family. But Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are ready to show Dave what family is all about!

...

Another wrenching Simon Serrailler novel of love, loss, dreadful crimes, and terror.

We met the enigmatic and brooding Simon Serrailler in The Various Haunts of Men and got to know him better in The Pure in Heart and The Risk of Darkness. The Vows of Silence, the fourth crime novel featuring Chief Inspector Serrailler, is perhaps even more compulsive and convincing than its predecessors.

A gunman is terrorizing young women in the cathedral town of Laffterton. What, if anything, links the apparently random murders? Is the marksman with the rifle the same as the killer with the handgun? With the complexity and character study that earned raves for The Pure in Heart and the relentless pacing and plot twists of The Various Haunts of Men, The Vows of Silence is truly the work of a writer at the top of her form....

An extraordinary ghost story from a modern master, published just in time for Halloween. In the apartment of Oliver's old professor at Cambridge, there is a painting on the wall, a mysterious depiction of masked revelers at the Venice carnival. On this cold winter's night, the old professor has decided to reveal the painting's eerie secret. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty.

By the renowned storyteller Susan Hill--whose first ghost story, The Woman in Black, has run for eighteen years as a play in London's West End--here is a new take on a form that is fully classical and, in Hill's able hands, newly vital. The Man in the Picture is a haunting tale of loss, love, and the very basest fear of our beings....

Spider-Man is on the lookout for his friend Harry's father when a new villain glides by. Can Spidey find Harry's dad with the Green Goblin close behind?

...

Spider-Man's newest enemy is big, green, and mean. Spider-Man thinks he has him all figured out. But there may be more to the Lizard than Spidey can imagine!

...

Spider-Man is in for a shock! Electro plans to steal the city's power supply, and he won't let anything get in his way. Can Spider-Man save the day before it's too late?

...

Peter doesn't know what will happen on his first day at the Daily Bugle. But when the Vulture swoops down on the city, Peter knows one thing for sure: Spider-Man is on the case!

...

What real reader does not yearn, somewhere in the recesses of his or her heart, for a really literate, first-class thriller - one that chills the body with foreboding of dark deeds to come, but warms the soul with perceptions and language at once astute and vivid? In other words, a ghost story by Jane Austen.

Austen we cannot, alas, give you, but Susan Hill's remarkable Woman In Black comes as close as the late twentieth century is likely to provide. Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story has as its hero one Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north to attend the funeral and settle the estate of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the nursery of the deserted Eel Marsh House, the eerie sound of pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and, most dreadfully, and for Kipps most tragically, the woman in black.

The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler - proof positive that that neglected genre, the ghost story, isn't dead after all....

Ahoy, Stuart!

When Stuart goes sailing, anything can happen. Whether it's a daring rescue, a narrow escape, or a raging storm, Stuart's adventures come in all sizes!

...

When animals from the zoo go missing, Spider-Man decides to check it out. He knows that something strange must be up. But he doesn’t expect to find Kraven the Hunter waiting for a fight!

...

When Susan Hill first introduced us to the city of Lafferton, to its meticulously crafted cast of characters, and to its chief police inspector Simon Serrailler, readers went wild. When it was released in hardcover, The Various Haunts of Men was named a BookSense Pick and was immediately on the must-read list of every mystery fan. Now out in paperback, Hill's intricate and pulse-pounding novel will reach an even wider audience.

As the story begins, a lonely woman vanishes while out on her morning run. Then a 22-year-old girl never returns from a walk. An old man disappears too. When fresh-faced policewoman Freya Graffham is assigned to the case, she runs the risk of getting too invested--too involved--in the action. Alongside the enigmatic detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrallier, she must unravel the mystery before events turn too gruesome.

Written with intelligence, compassion, and a knowing eye--in the tradition of the fabulous mysteries of Ruth Rendell and P.D. James--The Various Haunts of Men is an enthralling journey into the heart of a wonderfully developed town, and into the very mind of a killer....

Simon Serailler is back in this pulse-pounding, wrenching novel of action, love and loss.

We met Simon Serailler first in The Various Haunts of Men and got to know him better in The Pure in Heart. Susan Hill is not afraid to tackle difficult themes, always prepared to face up to the dark realities in everyday lives-and even the terrors of the real world. Her third crime novel, The Risk of Darkness, perhaps even more compulsive and convincing than its predecessors, explores the crazy grief of a widowed husband, a derangement that turns into obsession and threats, violence and terror.

Meanwhile, handsome, introverted Simon Serrailler, whose cool reserve has broken the hearts of several women, finds his own heart troubled by the newest recruit to the Cathedral staff: a feisty female Anglican priest with red hair.

With the complexity and character study that got raves for The Pure in Heart, and with the relentless pacing and plot twists of The Various Haunts of Men, The Risk of Darkness is truly the work of a writer at the top of her form....

THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY....